By Mark Scott
Albany, NY – All of New York's 543 local police departments will eventually be tied into a new $2 million computer system designed to simultaneously alert officers of federal terrorism warnings.
The first 30 terminals should be on line by the end of February, with at least one in each of the state's 16 "counter-terrorism zones."
Sheriff Patrick Gallivan says one of the zones is in Erie County. He says if the need arises, information will be sent over a secure network to each of the 16 zones.
"The idea is to put information into the hands of police officers," Gallivan said. "We need to put the information into their hands so that if they happen to come across somebody involved in an act of terrorism, they will be armed with the knowledge they need."
For now, it will be the responsibility of each zone coordinator to pass along the information to individual police departments within the zone. But the plan calls for each department to have its own computer. Their installation depends on whether the state Legislature includes money for the network in the final state budget.